Murray Grays in TN

[OvertonAngus]

Any TN people here run any MG cattle? If so where did you get them? I love the way they look and would like to add a few to my herd. If you put a black bull angus bull on them will they take the black gene to have a black calf or does it usually stay gray?

 

[waihou]

Murray Greys are homozygous black plus one or two dilution genes. Two copies give you silver, one copy gives you chocolate. No dilution genes give you black. If you mate two chocolate MG's with the right combination of the chromosomes with no dilution genes you get a black. I have 2 lovely pure bred registered black cows!
These are both by dark grey bulls over dark grey cows.
Yes you may get black calves, but only from dark grey cows, not from silver cows using an Angus bull.
Nether of these cows has had a black calf.

13 year old dam with her 12th calf.


2005 born Agate with her 7th calf at 7 months


Agate this year age nine years old with her 4 yr old dark grey daughter behind her and their calves by the same sire


We're using the bull calf pictured in the middle photo over the silver heifers, he was 602kgs at 15 months weighed yesterday and photographed, grass fed only. He is actually below breed average for birth weight and over breed average for growth at 200, 400, 600 days and mature cow weight as well as carcase weight and positive calving ease.

 

[Lucky_P]

I believe that Sizmic (I've not seen him around here in a while - but he & his wife have a new baby, so may have been otherwise occupied) has some MG cattle in his herd - located at Glendale KY - not far across the KY/TN line.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

We have 3 Murray Grey x Black Angus cows in our herd. They are brown in color. However, we did sell some Murray Grey bulls to a man who put them over a group of black cows. He got lots of calves that looked like a Charolais x Angus in color. Pictured below is one of the lighter 50% Murray Grey and 50% Angus cows that we have. She is with her 75% Murray Grey calf. Compared to the cow below, we have one that looks almost identical to this one and the other is darker. This year, the cow below weaned a 614 lb heifer.

As for breeders in Tennessee, there is Piney River Cattle Company. I have not seen their stock or met them and I do not know if they have anything for sale. However, they did purchase three really good 2 year old bulls out of Oklahoma about 5 years ago.

 

[Lucky_P]

I've got quite a few brown cows in my herd that look very much like the MGs in this thread - but most are predominantly Angus out of SimAngus cows or Shorthorn sired out of predominantly Angus cows - but have the color dilution gene courtesy of some yellow & white Simmental sires I used by AI breeding back in the late 1980s.

Backbone's big brown cow in the post above is an almost dead-ringer for one in my herd, named after my mom.